


5 (+1) reasons Bryce hasn't invited Jared over (yet)

by parrishsrubberplant (genus_species)



Category: You Could Make a Life Series - Taylor Fitzpatrick
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff and Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genus_species/pseuds/parrishsrubberplant
Summary: This began as a joke in a Discord chat. I'm expecting all of it to be jossed.





	5 (+1) reasons Bryce hasn't invited Jared over (yet)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measureless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measureless/gifts), [DizzyRedhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyRedhead/gifts).



I. Embarrassed about his framed guardian cat photos

Of all the reasons Bryce hasn’t invited Jared over to his apartment yet, Jared wasn’t expecting this.

He looks at the framed photos. “What the fuck is that?” He’s actually too intimidated by the fluffy, monkey-like creature in the photo to consider kissing Bryce right now. The monkey-like creature looks like it might jump out of the frame and bite him.

“It’s the guardian cat.”

“The what-the-fuck?” Jared pulls out his phone and searches “guardian cat” on Google. He sits down on Bryce’s squashy couch. “Hey, what’s your wifi password?”

Bryce kicks him. “Suck my dick.”

“Really? That’s your password? How do you handle it when your mom comes over?” Jared kicks him back.

“Stop,” Bryce said. “My legs are insured. I need them to do my job.”

“Who are you, Taylor Swift?” Jared puts his phone away. He looks at Bryce. He looks at the guardian cat. It’s white skinned hands are uplifted in supplication. He looks at Bryce. He looks back at the photo.

“I thought they were funny,” Bryce mumbles.

“You’re adorable,” Jared tells him. He means it sincerely, but Bryce’s head comes up, fast, like he’s not sure Jared’s joking.

Jared leans in and kisses him, just to reassure him. No other motives. He’s pretty sure he can forget about Bryce’s strange taste in wall art when he’s kissing him.

II. Leaves his towel and underwear on the floor

Jared really wants to kiss Bryce. But he drank about a liter of water at the restaurant and he needs to find a toilet before he explodes.

Bryce unlocks his door and Jared follows him into the apartment. His first thought, on looking around and seeing the blanket over the back of the couch and the art on the walls, is that Bryce’s mom helped him decorate.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure,” Bryce says. “Right through there.”

‘Through there’ turns out to be just outside Bryce’s bedroom. He has a large bed, probably queen-sized, with a fluffy blue duvet. Six pillows lurk at the head of the bed. 

_You’re one person, why do you need six pillows?_

Also Bryce apparently makes his bed every day--or made it in honor of Jared coming over--which is both hilarious and adorable. 

Jared steps into the bathroom. There’s a small pile of black fabric on the floor and a navy towel hanging crookedly over the shower rail. The toilet seat is up.

Of course Jared puts the toilet seat down when he finishes. And of course he nudges the pile of black fabric curiously with one foot. Armani boxers.

He washes his hands and goes back into the living room. “Do you always leave your underwear on the bathroom floor when you’re expecting guests?”

Bryce flushes. “I wasn’t expecting guests.” He looks up and smiles. “Hoping, maybe.” Jared sits down on the couch. “Anyway, now that you’ve seen my underwear once, do you want to see it again?”

Jared stares at him.

“Sorry, that sounded better in my head.”

It’s really hard to kiss someone while you’re also laughing at them, but somehow Jared manages it. “Do you really have only one type of boxers?”

Bryce looks at his belt, then looks back up at Jared. “You could find out,” he says.

“Challenge accepted,” Jared mumbles against his mouth.

III. Secret crafter

Intellectually, Jared knows that NHL players have strange habits. You spend enough time travelling and--you develop an obsessive Game of Thrones habit. You become a poker shark. You install a wifi camera so you can FaceTime your dogs from a thousand miles away. He’s prepared for the crazy.

Until he walks into Bryce’s apartment and realizes that he’s not prepared for the crazy. He doesn’t realize it at first.

“Do you live with your mom?” Jared asks. That’s definitely a half-finished blanket on the couch. It’s a mix of colors: dark green, maroon, dark blue. And it’s got whorls and bobbles. He reaches out to touch it. It feels soft and warm.

“No,” Bryce says. “That’s, uh, that’s mine.” He says it like he expects Jared to laugh at him.

“You knit?”

“Crochet,” Bryce says.

“Really?”

“My goalie taught me,” Bryce says. “From Stockton. We had a lot of long bus rides.” He shrugs. “I was watching TV last night and I forgot to put it away.”

“I think it’s cool,” Jared says.

“I could show you. I’m good with my hook.”

He actually tried for a crochet-related double entendre. Jared grins. “That’s really not what I came over for.”

Bryce leans in. “Maybe later.”

IV. High-tech toilet seat

The kiss breaks. Jared blinks. Bryce’s face resolves from a blur into two eyes and a nose. He closes his eyes and licks his lips.

Jared kisses him again. They’re not crammed into a car and Jared’s not, like, in danger of elbowing the steering wheel if he gets way too into it. 

They’re getting a little too into it when Jared’s stomach lurches. He pulls back, just as the offending organ emits an audible gurgle.

Bryce looks confused. “You’re still hungry?”

Jared shakes his head. “No. I think the five-alarm sauce was a mistake.” He bites the inside of his cheek. _Super sexy, Jared. The first time a guy invites you back to his place and you immediately develop stomach problems._ “Can I use your bathroom?”

“It’s just down the hall,” Bryce says. “I’ll come with you.”

“What? No.” Jared is definitely speed-walking for the bathroom now.

“It’s the toilet seat,” Bryce says. “It, um. Requires explanation?”

Right now the only explanation Jared requires is that he’s not going to crap his pants in front of his boyfriend. All the rest can wait.

He has to wait, in clenched anticipation, as Bryce pulls out the remote to his Japanese toilet seat (“I ordered it online”) and explains how the buttons work. Finally, mercifully, Bryce leaves him.

The toilet seat is...unusual. Jared hunts under the sink for a can of air freshener when he’s done, but he can’t find anything. 

Bryce is sprawled on the couch when Jared and his settling stomach return. “Better?”

Jared makes a face and sits next to him. “That toilet is an experience.”

Bryce shrugs. “I like it. I was in Japan for a youth tournament and they had them. I thought they were really nice. Like, no need to worry about toilet paper, and it’s cold here in the winter.”

Jared laughs. “I’m not laughing with you. You bought a toilet seat so you wouldn’t get a cold butt in the morning.”

“People spend money on stupider things,” Bryce mutters, folding his arms defensively.

Jared leans into him until Bryce takes the hint and begins to cuddle. “It’s cute,” Jared says.

V. Lives in a haunted house

Jared pokes Bryce. “Are you falling asleep?”

Bryce doesn’t open his eyes. “No.” He throws his arm over Jared and pulls him closer. “C’mere,” he mumbles.

Jared lets himself be cuddled. He thinks he could probably hear Bryce’s heartbeat if he listened for it. He tries. He doesn’t recognize it at first, not sure what to listen for, but then he feels the slow, steady thump. 

Bryce kisses him right above his eyebrow, sloppy and half-asleep. Jared lets himself drift.

He wakes up to cold air on his back. Bryce is asleep on his back, left hand flung out over the edge of the bed. Jared is--was--curled on his side next to him. The sheet is still over him. There’s no reason for him to feel cold.

He slides out of bed, being slow and quiet even though it looks like nothing short of an earthquake would wake Bryce up. He hears a quiet tap, tap, tap as he walks to the bathroom. The faucet is dripping. He twists it, hard, and it shuts off.

As he walks away from the bathroom he hears it again: tap, tap, tap… When he goes back to the bathroom sink, there’s no water coming out of it.

He hears the soft sounds of Bryce’s neighbors through the wall, walking back and forth in their apartment. Bryce is still sleeping. Jared studies him. He looks softer when he’s asleep. Jared reaches out and runs his fingers through Bryce’s hair.

Bryce blinks awake. “Hey.”

Jared kisses him. “Hey.”

“How did you sleep?” Bryce asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

“Good,” Jared says. He’s suddenly self-conscious, in a way he wasn’t last night. 

Bryce curls a hand around his shoulder. “I like waking up with you here.” He pulls Jared down to him, and Jared goes willingly.

Later, Jared thinks to mention the faucet. “Does your bathroom sink leak? The faucet was dripping when I got up this morning.”

“Um,” Bryce says. “You didn’t see anything on the mirror?”

“What does the mirror have to do with the water?”

“Sometimes there’s stuff written there,” Bryce says. “Usually nice stuff.” He pours a precise amount of milk into his coffee and stirs.

“Are you fucking with me?”

Bryce shakes his head.

“You think your apartment is haunted.”

Bryce shrugs. “I don’t write shit on my bathroom mirror. And there’s all these weird cold spots, sometimes, and the faucet.”

“Jesus.”

“I mean, we leave each other alone,” Bryce says.

“And what about your neighbors?” Jared asks. “Do they have the same problem?”

Bryce gives him a weird look. “I don’t have neighbors. This apartment is the only unit on this side of the building. My wall’s the same as the outer wall.”

“I definitely heard people walking around next door,” Jared says. “When I woke up.”

“Oh yeah,” Bryce says. “Sometimes there’s that too.”

“Dude, you live in a haunted apartment.”

Bryce shrugs. “They don’t bother me, I don’t bother them,” he says. “I light some candles sometimes.”

“Throw a little salt around?” Jared’s joking, but Bryce isn’t.

“It’s there space too,” he says.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Jared is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that his boyfriend believes in ghosts. And that his apartment is haunted.

“No,” Bryce says. He leans forward and plants a line of kisses along Jared’s collarbone. “Do you mind?”

“I shut the faucet off,” Jared says. “Thought you might not want the huge water bill.”

“Thanks,” Bryce says. He sits up. “Pancakes?”

“Are you making them?”

Bryce makes a face at him. “Please. I have a squeeze bottle full of pancake mix.”

“Did you put protein powder in the pancake mix?” Jared asks suspiciously.

“Please,” Bryce says, standing up and taking a clean pair of boxers out of his drawer. He steps into them. Jared takes a moment to admire his ass before it disappears under clothing. “It’s like you don’t love me.”

Jared puts on his own underwear. “Of course I do,” he says. “Ghosts and all.” He sneaks a look at Bryce. He’s gone suspiciously pink and looks like he’s trying not to smile.

+1 Inexperienced, taking it slow

Jared leans back into the couch. It’s very squashy and very comfortable. “I thought you had some kind of, I don’t know, embarrassing secret,” Jared says. “Like, weird artwork, or odd hobbies. Or, I don’t know, ghosts, and that was why you haven’t invited me to your house yet.”

“We’ve been dating for a week,” Bryce says. “I didn’t want to go too fast.”

“We’ve seen each other every day. I tried to get you off in my driveway.”

“Point.” Bryce takes Jared’s hand and plays with his fingers. “I just--I haven’t dated very many people.”

Cards on the table, then. Jared takes a breath. “I haven’t dated anybody,” he says.

Bryce kisses his palm. “Me,” he says. “You’ve dated me.” Jared shivers. Bryce kisses his hand again, a centimeter to the left of before. “I haven’t either. Dated people. Much.”

“You’re not--you didn’t--” Jared cannot believe this. Bryce is _attractive_ , even for a hockey player. Especially for a hockey player.

“I dated two girls in high school,” Bryce says. “One of them because her hair smelled like coconut and she helped me with my math homework.”

Jared blurts the first stupid thing that comes into his head. “Well, you kiss really well.”

“Thanks.” Bryce kisses his neck, just under the curve of his jaw. Jared tips his head back. “I don’t want camp to end,” Bryce says, low.

Jared is most of the way to turned on at this point--who knew, apparently neck kisses are A Thing--but he freezes at that. Camp, ending. He feels suddenly sick. “I really like you.”

Bryce looks equally miserable. “I really like you too.”

Someone has to say it. “I want to keep dating you past the end of camp,” Jared says. “I mean, only if you want to.”

Bryce kisses him so hard his teeth clack against Jared’s. He pulls back enough to speak. “Yes,” he says. “I want that too.”

“Good,” Jared says.


End file.
